Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to provide new data regarding the current staffing practices being used by organizations in Canada and the United States (US) as well as a comparison with existing data from Germany (Diekmann & König, 2015). Data regarding the beliefs of human resource (HR) practitioners in terms of using personality tests in personnel selection is also provided. A geographically representative sample of 453 HR practitioners across Canada and the US were surveyed. Although general mental ability testing has previously been found to be highly valid and cost effective, this selection tool was among the least commonly used in all three countries. Personality tests were also rarely used (especially in Canada and the US) and research–practice gaps still appear to be an issue (e.g., HR practitioners’ preference for personality types as opposed to traits).
Highlights
The purpose of this paper is to provide new data regarding the current staffing practices being used by organizations in Canada and the United States (US) as well as a comparison with existing data from Germany (Diekmann & König, 2015)
The least common selection tools being used in all three countries were graphological assessments and general mental ability/IQ tests (4.2% in Canada, 6.0% in the US, 4.8% in Germany)
It will be of interest to researchers that many of the methods that are most commonly studied in the selection literature are not being highly utilized by practitioners; perhaps future research efforts should be directed more so toward the selection methods that are being more commonly utilized by practitioners
Summary
The purpose of this paper is to provide new data regarding the current staffing practices being used by organizations in Canada and the United States (US) as well as a comparison with existing data from Germany (Diekmann & König, 2015). Meta-analytic evidence has supported the importance of human capital relating favorably to firm performance (e.g., Crook, Todd, Combs, Woehr, & Ketchen, 2011) It is in an organization’s best interests to make use of accurate selection tools in order to acquire the human capital necessary to drive organizational success. Selection Tool Use conducted a multicountry investigation into testing trends as a follow-up to a similar, earlier initiative (Ryan, McFarland, Baron, & Page, 1999); this recent initiative involved surveying higher level HR professionals (e.g., HR managers, directors, and executives) and obtained responses from HR professionals in 24 countries—the US and Germany were represented in their sample, but Canada was not and Germany comprised less than 2% of their total sample. It is worth noting that the survey conducted by Ryan et al (2015) did not assess the prevalence of some important selection tools, such as interviewing and résumé reviewing
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